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Detroit: Become Human

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cB557 said:
if it lets energy and information be moved much faster, it'd mean more energy available for more lifelike movements and more processing power to act convincingly human.
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Bear in mind I am writing with the assumption that Be Human is being written as a hard sci-fi grounded in some form of reality. With that said...

I still don't think it makes sense. Yes, you can just say "this magical thing can do x because of a cool buzzword name", but as I see it it destroys my suspension of disbelief considering that we already have significantly better forms of information transfer and energy transfer.

I am going to assume that this blue blood physically carries the energy and information around the body like red blood cells. Firstly, why? This is a very inefficient means of transferring energy and information. The androids don't appear to be like metal gear cyborgs where the blood is needed to carry oxygen, nutrients, and toxins from actual artificial musculature. If this blood is so magical, we should expect to see it being used in everyday life from computers to various cutting edge hardware aside from the androids--at the very least in upper middle-class families.

We already have fast means of transferring energy and information. Fiber optics are some of the best means of information transfer, and our neurons can transfer information fast enough that sufficiently trained individuals are capable of amazing feats of reaction. In the context of these examples, this "blue blood" is simply not believable and comes off as extremely pretentious writing.

To add onto that, information and energy are kinda the same thing in the context of transferring information. Computers transfer information by sending electricity through paths in pulses. Having information and power going through the same channel at the same time is asking for catastrophic disaster to occur in the system. In addition, no amount of flowing liquid is going to match a superconducting wire. Thats why human nerves and robotic circuits rely on electricity.

David Cage would have had better success just writing it off as quantum computing or mega-processing units. As it is right now it feels like pretentious hipster worldbuilding trying to be cool. This would work in a science fantasy story and maybe Be Human turns out to be one, but from what I understand of the setting currently it doesn't make any sense nor does it make the setting feel any more deep or interesting in the way that stuff like minovsky particles and GN drives or nanomachines make gundam and metal gear interesting.
 
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Kokurokoki said:
Bear in mind I am writing with the assumption that Be Human is being written as a hard sci-fi grounded in some form of reality. With that said...

I still don't think it makes sense. Yes, you can just say "this magical thing can do x because of a cool buzzword name", but as I see it it destroys my suspension of disbelief considering that we already have significantly better forms of information transfer and energy transfer.

I am going to assume that this blue blood physically carries the energy and information around the body like red blood cells. Firstly, why? This is a very inefficient means of transferring energy and information. The androids don't appear to be like metal gear cyborgs where the blood is needed to carry oxygen, nutrients, and toxins from actual artificial musculature. If this blood is so magical, we should expect to see it being used in everyday life from computers to various cutting edge hardware aside from the androids--at the very least in upper middle-class families.

We already have fast means of transferring energy and information. Fiber optics are some of the best means of information transfer, and our neurons can transfer information fast enough that sufficiently trained individuals are capable of amazing feats of reaction. In the context of these examples, this "blue blood" is simply not believable and comes off as extremely pretentious writing.

To add onto that, information and energy are kinda the same thing in the context of transferring information. Computers transfer information by sending electricity through paths in pulses. Having information and power going through the same channel at the same time is asking for catastrophic disaster to occur in the system. In addition, no amount of flowing liquid is going to match a superconducting wire. Thats why human nerves and robotic circuits rely on electricity.

David Cage would have had better success just writing it off as quantum computing or mega-processing units. As it is right now it feels like pretentious hipster worldbuilding trying to be cool. This would work in a science fantasy story and maybe Be Human turns out to be one, but from what I understand of the setting currently it doesn't make any sense nor does it make the setting feel any more deep or interesting in the way that stuff like minovsky particles and GN drives or nanomachines make gundam and metal gear interesting.
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It's probably Magic.
 
Or maybe it's just a visually distinct element of the game's science fiction. As far as 'weird pseudoscience in video games' go this is very far from the strangest thing I've ever heard.
 
serra2 said:
Okay, Cage has shocked me. I thought we were going with silly ghost nonsense, but nope. It's vampires.
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I'm gonna have to apologize to Cage for saying he's talentless, because he apparently does have a talent: instead of making me look forward to a fucking metal sci-fi premise -- ROBOT ARISTOCRAT ANDROIDS -- I'm dreading the fact that it's part of the story.

Also, I foresee this story having a serious case of X-Men Mutant Syndrome, i.e. let's make the stand-in for an oppressed minority actually more capable, dangerous, or powerful than ordinary humans And What Is Systematic Racism Anyway?

Ford Prefect said:
Not accepting the premise is fine, and normal reason to not consume a piece of media, but this is not exactly an outrageous premise in itself.
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Yes, but here's the major disconnect that I think you and everybody else is having.

I suspect most folks, myself, and I wager even yourself, don't really give Cage the benefit of the doubt, cannot suspend their disbelief for his narratives, and thus things that they wouldn't criticise in a trailer from an unknown director or dev immediately jump out at them.

I get where you're coming from and I get why you're talking about the viability of premises and ideas and imagery in the abstract, and you're perhaps even still willing to give Cage some benefit of the doubt -- but if you're not willing to do that, this is shit that people will criticise and point out.

And it's actually understandable! The benefit of the doubt given to media creators by the audience leading to a successful suspension of disbelief is a limited thing. And Cage's work has been re-evaluated over the years, he has burned a lot of goodwill these last few years (and even more so in the last few months with the reports of Quantic Dream being a hellhole for its employees). He's not an unknown. It's impossible to look at DBH in the abstract on its own anymore.

More on topic, do you actually genuinely think that Cage might be able to pull this premise off? And if so, why is that?
 
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Fernandel said:
More on topic, do you actually genuinely think that Cage might be able to pull this premise off?
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No, not at all. I think this will probably be better than all the previous entries in his corpus, but I expect that the script will be kind of awkward, that the moral conflict will be on the nose and I expect that there will be a number of eyebrow raising moments of tone deafness. I think the story will probably be kind of half-baked overall, and we're firmly in the middle of a period in media where allegory for racism is basically unnecessary, and we can just make stories about black people. I would link that Point and Clickbait article about Mafia 3, but we all know it by heart now.

I understand not being charitable to David Cage. He makes makes it very hard to be charitable to him, because he's kind of asshole and he's made a lot of weird trash over the years.

What I can't stand is people saying obviously idiotic things. Some of the stuff in this thread goes well beyond a lack charity and verges straight into the Hyperbole Time Chamber. People will complain about irrelevancies and that's just life, but if people are going to engage with criticising the game, I'd appreciate it if they put in the effort to do it properly. Not even a lot of effort, mind you. Honestly I'd just like it if people would attempt to parse words and images instead of watching a video and then just imagining a problem which isn't actually evident in that video.

There will be fans of this game. None of them on SV, anyone who would dare to like it probably isn't interested in running the gauntlet, but in general. And if there will be fans, there is an inherent value in ensuring that the critique of this game is accurate. That it is based in the actual content of the game, and can speak to the experience of that game. It's much like Sword Art Online in that regard. There are a lot of people who will never listen to any criticism of SAO, no matter how reasonable, simply because there's a huge contingent of people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

So when I get on someone's case about their inaccurate or stupid responses, it's not because I think they're being uncharitable, it's not because I think maybe this will be the first good David Cage game, it's because I want to hate it more completely, and that shit is getting in my way.
 
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Sorry, correction on the payment numbers: It is $8000 a MONTH, for two years.

EDIT: Oh boy, the reviews are in
 
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